Christmas Recap

We had a very nice Christmas and a fun visit with my parents who were very happy to spend Christmas with their three grandchildren here. Mom and I had some fun shopping together. The stores were packed. After Christmas, Hubby and my dad played a round of golf, and I gave Mom the "Tour of Mass Destruction" that she requested. I started by taking her to see my friend's gutted house, drove by the cemetery (the tombs in the ditch had been picked up, but two were still toppled ontop other tombs), then drove through the flooded neighborhoods closer to the lake that had flooded about 8-9 feet deep. We finished the tour with a stop at my next door neighbor's FEMA trailer. Mom also wanted to see what an MRE was like, but we were going to send one with them for their drive up to Tennessee to visit my sisters! Oh well, they will still be good the next time they visit.

By the way, Happy Birthday to both of my sisters today!! (yes, they are twins)


Here is a very cute Christmas card from a co-worker of Hubby's that I had to share. It's a photo card of the couple in front of their New Orleans house next do their debris pile, complete with their stinky fridge. Very cute. and as usual, click the picture to see an enlarged version.

Merry Christmas

More than ever before, we count our many blessings and give thanks for all the wonderful people in our lives.

Christmas Card 2005

For the last 9 years, I have created a home-made Christmas card to send to all our relatives and friends. I like to include photos from the year and other bits about what we've been up to. Naturally everyone has been very interested to see what I will come up with this year. I assumed they were all anticipating a Katrina themed card, so I did not dissapoint. Here's the cover of our card for this year:
That's our house sporting it's Blue Roof from FEMA. About half the homes in our nieghborhood still have them. The inside of our card includes a long silly description of what we have been doing without actually ever mentioning the word "hurricane" or especially the dreaded K-word (katrina).

We spent much of this morning making Christmas cookies. Right now we're waiting and watching out the window for a big RV to pull up. My folks will be here any minute to spend Christmas with us. Happy Christmas and Merry Hannukah and all that other stuff! Peace, love and joy. :-)

12 Days of Katrina-mess

There are a LOT of folks over in New Orleans who still don't have any power to their homes. Half the city still sits in darkness. This song came to me by email. Sorry, I don't know who wrote it! If you're looking for what to give someone who lives here, this should give you some ideas. ;-)

The Twelve Days of Post-Katrina Christmas
(or as I prefer to call it, "The 12 Days of Katrina-mess")

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
The power turned back on by Entergy.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Two rubber gloves
And the power turned back on by Entergy.

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Three flood adjusters
Two rubber gloves
And the power turned back on by Entergy.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Four jugs of bleach
Three flood adjusters
Two rubber gloves
And the power turned back on by Entergy.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Five MREs!
Four jugs of bleach
Three flood adjusters
Two rubber gloves
And the power turned back on by Entergy.

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Six FEMA payments
Five MREs!
Four jugs of bleach
Three flood adjusters
Two rubber gloves
And the power turned back on by Entergy.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Seven sacks of sheetrock
Six FEMA payments
Five MREs!
Four jugs of bleach
Three flood adjusters
Two rubber gloves
And the power turned back on by Entergy.

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Eight electricians wiring
Seven sacks of sheetrock
Six FEMA payments
Five MREs!
Four jugs of bleach
Three flood adjusters
Two rubber gloves
And the power turned back on by Entergy.

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Nine sweepers sweeping
Eight electricians wiring
Seven sacks of sheetrock
Six FEMA payments
Five MREs!
Four jugs of bleach
Three flood adjusters
Two rubber gloves
And the power turned back on by Entergy.

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Ten dump trucks hauling
Nine sweepers sweeping
Eight electricians wiring
Seven sacks of sheetrock
Six FEMA payments
Five MREs!
Four jugs of bleach
Three flood adjusters
Two rubber gloves
And the power turned back on by Entergy.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Eleven roofers roofing
Ten dump trucks hauling
Nine sweepers sweeping
Eight electricians wiring
Seven sacks of sheetrock
Six FEMA payments
Five MREs!
Four jugs of bleach
Three flood adjusters
Two rubber gloves
And the power turned back on by Entergy.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
Twelve plumbers plumbing
Eleven roofers roofing
Ten dump trucks hauling
Nine sweepers sweeping
Eight electricians wiring
Seven sacks of sheetrock
Six FEMA payments
Five MREs!
Four jugs of bleach
Three flood adjusters
Two rubber gloves
And the power turned back on by Entergyyyyy! PLEASE! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!

Fence Going Up!

Our fence guys came last week and installed the posts. Today they are busy installing the boards. It's a local guy who is subcontracting on a local building company's license. His crew consists of his fiance and another guy. I haven't seen to many women out on construction teams. Good for her.

There was some sort of activity two doors down at Joe's house this afternoon. They have a crew of migrant workers working on their fence. A few minutes ago, two sheriff's deputies took one of them away in handcuffs and the other four guys on the crew ran off. No one seems to know what that was all about, or who even called the sherriff. I guess we'll find out later. Or maybe we'll never know.

We have a new debris pile in our front yard from what was left of our old fence. Our fencing guys are supposed to haul it away. Speaking of debris -- for any of my St. Tammany Parish neighbors reading this: There is now a hotline to call if you have more debris that needs to be picked up. This is for unincorporated areas of St. Tammany. It was in this morning's paper: (985)898-2323 weekdays from 8-4:30pm. If you have applicances you can call the EPA at (800) 401-1327.

Update on our new cat: He is cuddly and adorable. We seemed to have picked the perfect pet for our family. Here are some cute pictures of our dog Oscar and Rocky getting along famously. They were both sitting and looking out the window watching the fence crew this morning. Too cute.

Signs of the Season

6th grade band concert last night.

My son was the best one on his row. ;-)

Entrance to our neighborhood:

Happy Holidays!

I'll Be In That Number

There has been some local controversy over whether it is appropriate to hold Mardi Gras this year given all that has happened. Half the city is still in darkness and so many people are unable to come home. But more than ever before we need it. Yesterday my favorite local columnist, Chris Rose, published a column that has everyone talking. From the respons in today's editorials, apparently many people share his sentiments. Here are some snippets from his column:

"... we can't turn off the lights and keep the costumes in storage and ladders in the shed for another year just because we are beaten and broken and because so many of us are not here.

In fact, we have to do this because we are beaten and broken and so many of us are not here."

and

"Mardi Gras is the love of life. It is the harmonic convergence of our food, our music, our creativity, our eccentricity, our neighborhoods and our joy of living. All at once.

And it doesn't really matter if there are superparades or even any parades at all this year. Because some group of horn players will grab their instruments and they will march Down the Avenue because that's what they do, and I, for one, will follow."

Read the entire thing at the Times Picayune in We're Having Mardi Gras and That's Final.

Fence Guys and Girl Scouts

At long last, the fence guys are here today! They have already ripped out most of what was left of the old fence and are going to set the new poles today. They're installing the 4x4 treated posts instead of the metal poles that we had before. The metal poles didn't hold up well in the wind, but the theory was that they would suffer less termite damage. It will be nice to get rid of what I call the "chicken yard" which was a temporary wire pen for the dog.

We had a Service Unit meeting last week for the Girl Scout leaders in our area. We have gone from 27 active troops in Slidell down to 9. It's so sad. But, a year from now I bet things will be a lot different and we'll get some new people to volunteer as leaders.

I met with my Junior Girl Scout troop girls over the weekend for the first time since the storm. Three of the girls in our troop did not evacuate and stayed for the storm. They shared their experiences with the rest of us. Every one of them said it was really weird when the eye of the storm passed over and everyone went outside of their homes to have a look.

One of the girls was with her mother, younger brother and her mother's pregnant best friend in their Slidell house during the storm. And yup, the friend went into labor and the girl's mother delivered that baby in their house! It was a baby girl. I'll give you one guess what they named her. :-)

Tree Tales

At first, we weren't going to buy a tree this year because

(1) there are no tree lots selling trees around here this year

(2) we didn't want to contribute any more debris to the MAJOR debris problem we are still having, and ...

(3) we were lucky enough not to get a tree in our living room during the hurricane, so why would we want one in there now? ;-)

So, I went to look for a fake tree, but the only one we liked was really expensive. I bought it, but the box was so big and heavy I just couldn't deal with it, and it was too much money anyway, so I took it back. The kids were pretty dissappointed, and I felt like a grinch. But then the grocery store actually had one truckload of trees, so I got a nice 6-1/2 foot one for only $21.99 and shoved it into my minivan. What a deal. It looks awesome.

We took a picture in front of it last night with our new cat. Five minutes later, the entire thing crashed to the floor and spewed ornaments and water everywhere. LOL

From that moment on, we would refer to this small disaster as the "tree incident" or a hurricane aftershock. And no, the poor cat was no where near the tree when it fell.

Rocky Road

Heeeere's Rocky. He lost his original home after Katrina, and someone must have loved him a lot because he is soo sweet. He's about 6 months old and loves loves loves to be held, which was a primary consideration for a cat in our family. It's a good thing he loves to be held because he's going to be cuddled and sqeezed a lot around here.

While the kids went to a friend's all day, we went on a big shopping spree. We stuffed all the other Christmas presents we bought into a closet, but there was no hiding this gift. So here he is!

We've been looking for a super-friendly kitty for a little while and when we found this guy, we couldn't risk having someone else adopt him first, so we took him home.

He came from a nearby shelter. He's very cute and seems to be fitting right in.

End of Hurricane Season

As of Midnight November 30, the 2005 hurricane season is officially over!!! No more worrying about evacuations for a while .... until next June anyway.

I'm finally having my first troop meeting since the storm with my Brownies today. A couple of other Girl Scout troops from around the country have adopted our troop to help us get back on our feet. We lost a few members, and a couple who are still active had their homes flooded. Hopefully our adopters will help us replace their damaged uniforms. The girls will be SO happy to be back together again.

Time to get busy doing some Christmas shopping too. Busy busy.

Welch for Judge

My sister was in a parade this past weekend as part of her campaign. Her truck looks awesome! it wears those decals all the time now, not just for parades.

Her team added some Christmas decor and threw candy to the crowd. My little nephew got ride in the parade along with some other children who had a blast cheering to the crowd to "Vote for Welch!"


She is still accepting donations to her campaign of course! So anyone who feels like donating can click over to her website where you can even give online -- WelchforJudge.com

Crabby People

Boy people are crabby around here lately. Even the newspaper ran an article yesterday where the writer explained that being nice can actually get you a lot in the post-katrina environment. Everyone is just sick and tired of it all I guess. There is not much sympathy anymore for anyone -- maybe from around the country (except forall those who have forgotten by now that this ever happened), but there is no sympathy for each other. It's "move out the way or get run over" around here.

The day before yesterday two friends stopped at my house during their evening walk. They needed to use the phone to call the sheriff because of a domestic issue on the street behind our house. I saw him hurl a huge recyle bin at the hood of his girlfriend's car as she tried to leave. Later we saw the police talking to her and an ambulance came to check her out. Nice.

The holiday spirit seems to be severly lacking as well. It's nearly a week after Thanksgiving, and there are hardly any homes with Christmas decorations up. Most people in our area put up holiday displays that rival National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation movie. This year, folks are just too tired I think.

Yesterday, we finally mustered up enough energy to put up a lite-version of what we normally put up. Usually we put lights up over the entire house. I just don't think we could stand to spend one more minute up on that roof this year. We've been up there enough already! So, we put up our big inflatable Santa and a bunch of white lights in the bushes. It looks nice. I think there are only two houses on our street with any Christmast lights so far. Normally we have a competition in our neighborhood for the best dressed house over the holidays. Not a lot of competition for that this year, I'm afraid.

It does feel good to stick to routines a little though. I think people would feel better if they would at least make an attempt at their old routines. On the other hand, I don't even want to think about going Christmas shopping.

They All Asked for You

We went on down to the Audobon Zoo and they all asked for you. (That's how the song goes...)

Seriously, we went to the zoo on Saturday. It was it's first weekend open since the disaster, and it was free to the public on this opening weekend. I think the entire population of the city must have been there - it was packed! The animals seemed actually glad to see all the people. They were right out there in front posing for pictures.

The zoo is located in Uptown New Orleans and did not flood, but it did get some wind damage. From what I understand many animals were evacuated to other zoos, but most have now returned.

My favorite sight was the new decor at the alligator swamp habitat. There is a floating swamp shack that is part of the display, and it had been altered to show the signs of the times with the addition of a blue roof, duct taped fridge, an empty box of MRE's and the telltale markings of the search and rescuers.

Most folks were very amused by it.

One rather ironic part of the swamp display that has been there for years featured an old flooded out car from the 1920's and a plaque that described the great flood of 1927 -- and how the New Orleans levees were built to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. If you click the picture you can read it for yourself. Harrumph.

(There is much controversy going on now in the City because the engineers will not commit to building the levees strong enough for a major storm. They only want to make them strong enough for a catagory 3 storm -- which is what we already have and obviously it was not enough! If they can't do it right, why bother?)

Anyway, aside from the crowd, most of the zoo looked pretty good. There were a few trees downed, the poor sloth had only one little tree left in his display where he could hang, a lot of the huge bamboo forest had fallen over, but overall it is still a very nice zoo.

Stuffed Turkeys

Here is a picture of three stuffed turkeys after they finished our Thanksgiving dinner. I guess they enjoyed it. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving

We are having a very low key Thanksgiving dinner with just our immediate family. We'll have turkey and all the trimmings, and the kids will help make most of it. They helped choose the menu and shop at the grocery store too.

We invited some friends from New Orleans to come if they like, but I think they just want to be home more than anything, so they are going to try to make dinner at home even though they have no gas, and therefore no oven. I can certainly understand the feeling of wanting to be home for Thanksgiving.

Neighbor's House Sold

Here's an update to House for sale across the street. Apparently the house was sold on the first day it was listed and they got the full asking price. According to the owner, they also had two more bids come in that same day. It was nearly 15-20% more than they probably would have gotten before the disaster.

The current renters are moving out today. They apparently have a big FEMA trailer at their house in New Orleans right now waiting for them. The new owners are moving in after December 10th. Supposedly it is a young couple with a 1-2 year old baby. She is supposedly in nursing school (somewhere local I guess), but I didn't find out what he does. It will be nice to have a family over there instead of the construction company.

Speaking of FEMA trailers, I got a tour of my next door neighbor's trailer this weekend. It's a bare-bones travel trailer, but it is brand new and very nice inside. It has central air and heat and a sectioned off master bedroom area. It has a fridge and microwave and a regular oven and is all hooked up to the sewer and electric. Once they start repairing the inside of their home, they will probably be stuck inside that trailer for a few weeks. I don't know what is taking their contractors so long to get started. I hope they don't end up spending the holidays in their trailer!

‘Twas the Night ...

This poem (below) came to me via email this morning from a local friend. It had been forwarded several times and unfortunately the original author was lost in the messages. If I find out the author, I'll post it.

It reminds me of an adorable book that was given to us by my mother-in-law a few years ago called, The Cajun Night Before Christmas where they take the traditional story of jolly old St. Nicholas, dress him in muskrat from his head to his toes, pile his skiff high with toys, and hitch it to eight friendly flying alligators.

The drawings in that book of Santa with his alligators pulling the skiff are wonderful.


I guess we have a new story to add...


‘Twas the Night Before Katrina, Cajun Style

'Twas de night before Katrina, when all tru da state
Not a gas pump was pumpin', Not a store open late
All da plywood was hung, on de windows wit care,
Knowing dat a hurricane, Soon would be dere.

Da chilren were ready wit deir flashlight in hand
While rain bands from da hurricane covered over our lan
And Mom wit her Mag-lite, and me wit my cap
Has jus filled da battub for flushing our crap..

When out on de lawn, there arose such a clatter
I sprang from da closet to see what was de matter
The trees on da terrace, and de neighbor's roof torn,
We feared we'd be dyin' in dis terrible storm.

Wit a little wind gus, so lively and quick,
I membered quite clearly our walls was not brick
More rapid than Eagles, her courses they changed!
And she whistled and wafted and surged all the same.

Off shingles! Off sidings! Off rooftops! Off power!
Down trees! Down fences! Down trailers! Down towers!
On da street of New Orleans, she continued to maul,
Screaming Blow away! Blow away! Blow away all!

As da wind ripped and tossed da debris tru de sky,
I peeked out the shutters at the cars floatin' by.
So go to the attic my family did do,
With a portable radio and some batteries too.

And den in a twinkling, I heard on da set,
The end was not coming for a few hours yet!
As I calmed down da kids and was turning around
Tru de window it came with a huge crashing sound

A tree branch it was all covered in soot
De wind blew it smack-dab on top of my foot!
A bundle of twigs now lay in a stack
And my Livin' Room looked like it was under attack.

De wind how it howled, de storm very scary,
Myself and my family were all too unwary.
Da dangers of hurricanes are serious ya know,
Dey are taken for granted as Betsy did show.

Wit da winds dying down and da danger beneath,
I noticed my tool shed was missing its sheath
So I grabbed my last tarp, and nailed it on down,
Den I got in my car and drove into town.

Da traffic was awful and stores had no ice,
My 5-gallon cooler would have to suffice
Generators was scarce, not one left in town,
Dere was trees on the roads and power lines down.

FEMA was ready wit people to work,
Electrical companies came in from New York.
I sprang to da car, and gave my family a whistle,
Den away we all went like a Tomahawk missile!

You could hear us exclaim as we drove out of sight,

"The heck wit dis place, Texas seem just right!"

Tid Bits of Note

For most of the years we have lived here, there has been almost a murder a day in New Orleans. And as a sign that things are returning to normal, yesterday a New Orleans woman was stabbed to death in a violent murder. Read more about it in this storyfrom the paper today.

And sadly, something that is NOT normal along those same lines also happened this week in St Tammany where we live. The body of a teenage girl bound and gagged was found in the river, about 12 miles from my house. The police cannot identify her despite the detailed descriptions they've publicized over the past two days. I hope this is not a sign of a trend. With all the transient workers here in St. Tammany, this makes me very nervous. There are too many strangers here in our little suburb where we used to feel safe.



The Noah's Wish temporary animal shelter in Slidell where I spent a couple of days walking dogs will be closing this week on Thursday. They still have about 200 dogs and cats that are now up for adoption or fostering today. Read more about it in Lost and Pound.

Any of my neighbors reading this who still have a fridge hanging around please take note! St. Tammany residents can call the EPA's "Household Hazardous Waste Hotline" to have it picked up (800)401-1327. The fridges in my neighborhood were all picked up just before Halloween, but I'm sure there are many more lurking out there.


And can you stand one more fetid fridge story? When dh got back to his lab last week, he was greeted with a freezer full of dead rats that have been sitting for two months with no power. It may be some time before they can be disposed of since these are a hazardous waste that require certain protocal to remove them under normal circumstances. But there's no rush now that the power is back on, since they have simply been re-frozen. Yummy. ;-)

The Joys of MREs

This morning I am having a lovely (NOT) cup of cappacino -- MRE style. For anyone not familiar with the acronym, MRE stands for "Meals Ready to Eat". It's military field rations, and it's what everyone around here ate a lot of during the first 2-3 weeks back after the storm when the grocery stores were bare. They require no refridgeration and many come with self heating packets that really get hot. Here's a photo example in case you've never had the pleasure.


You never know what you're going to get when you crack open a thick plastic bag that comprises one MRE. The condiments and after meal snack varies from meal to meal, and some of them also have dessert which can be anything from a pack of M&M's to gummy worms. Most of them also have two pieces of Chicklet style gum. I guess that's so soldiers can have nice breath after eating tobasco flavored industrial food. Many of them have tiny little bit of toilet paper in them too. I guess that's for...well, I'd rather not say. We still have a box of unopened MRE's in the garage. They will probably last until the next millenium.

Anyway, we have a container on our kitchen counter filled with miscellaneous little condiments and drink packets that came in the MREs. My favorite condiment is the teeny tiny little bottle of tobasco sauce. It is probably less than half an ounce.

My local grocery store is out of my favorite flavored New Orleans style coffee (surprise), so rather than figure out how to work our coffee machine and drink the Folgers, I found a packet of cappacino mix in our MRE condiment collection. I'm not really an MRE aficionado and have tried to avoid them whenever possible, but it would be a shame to let all these cute little packaged condiments and drink mixes go to waste. So I'm sipping away at my MRE coffee.

I wish I could say it was tasty. ;-)

House for Sale across the street

The neighbors directly across the street from us put a realtor's for sale sign in the yard this week. Currently the house is being rented to a family member of theirs from New Orleans who has a contractor business. I have to admit that I will be very glad if they sell the house to someone other than the contractors. It has been very unsettling having a crew of strange men showing up at the house every morning and parking their cars all over the street and on other people's lawns. I'm hoping the realtor's sign means they are not doing a for sale by owner to their current renters. They began having their new roof installed yesterday - ironically it is being installed by a different contracting company than the renter's business.

They appear to be asking a decent price. As a nosey neighbor, I naturally had to look up the listing on realtor.com. As a rule, housing prices in Louisiana are probably the lowest in the country. You can get a wonderful house for hardly any money at all. Our house in most other places would probably cost 3 times as much. At any rate, the asking price for the neighbor's is easily 15-20% more than it would have been two months ago. I guess that's good news for us. Our homes were undervalued already. It's about time they started to catch up.


I am cracking up at this listing that shows a house in my friend Jeannie's neighborhood that still has it's blue roof in the listing photo.

FEMA Trailer

A FEMA trailer moved in next door while I was away in NYC.

The neighbors are going to have to stay somewhere else for a few weeks while the inside of their home is repaired (from where the ceiling caved in after the attic took on water during the storm), so they qualified for a trailer from FEMA. They are also going to have to move a lot of their belongings out, so their plan is to rent one of those PODS for their furniture.

I've seen dozens of these trailers around town. People are living in trailers and mobile homes everywhere. There are some camped out in the Walmart parking lot, church parking lots, in many driveways of damaged homes, and in the parking lots of private businesses where the owners most likely had their homes destroyed. A year from now I imagine there will be a few homeowners associations in a tizzy over the trailers regarding their deeds and covenances. A couple of neighborhoods over in Mandeville have already had issues with the trailers.

Help from FEMA seems so random (although they did pick up our pile of debris!). There are so many people that I know who don't have a home at all, and they still don't have one or don't even qualify. For example, Bob who works for the city, has been living with friends and in other buildings where ever he can for a week or two at a time. He did not qualify for a trailer because he was not "living in a shelter". The man is completely homeless since his was completely flooded and several large trees finished it off by crushing it completely (including the wheelchair ramp his wife needed). It is a total loss. His wife is now living in another state with family while he works here for the city of Slidell. It seems very strange how they decide which families to help and which to keep mired in red tape.

Other repair news: We finally decided on a contractor to repair our fence. Supposedly we're on the list and he should get to us sometime after Thanksgiving. It will be nice to have a private back yard again. Then we can run around outside in our skivies and not worry about the trailer occupants next door staring at us. (Just checking to see if they are reading this. LOL). ::I'm waving through the window!::

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the tour of their new digs. I wonder if they'll hang some lights on it at Christmas? :-)

Elect My Sister!

OK, folks! My wonderful sister who took me in during the evacuation now needs our help!

As of last week, she is officially a Democratic Candidate For General Sessions Judge, Division 8, in Nashville, TN! Her campaign officially began on November 3rd. She has been preparing for this opportunity for years, and it is her dream to serve as judge.

She has already spent months pounding the pavement in her grass roots campaign to meet people and get the word out locally that she is a candidate for General Sessions Judge. I have seen her in action at a political function this summer, and I can tell you personally that she is awesome. She has been a police officer for many years and worked hard to earn her law degree during that time, and she has also served for the past three years as a Special, Substitute Judge for the General Sessions Court in Nashville, ruling on a wide range of cases.

Being elected judge will allow her to "continue to protect and serve". If there was ever a person who was made for this position, it is my sister.


How you can help: I'm just going to put it bluntly -- send money to "The Committee to Elect Welch for Judge"!

We all know how the political system works. It takes money to get elected.

Tonette has a campaign committee together and is going through all the official channels. Ideally they need to raise $100,000 dollars or more toward the campaign for her to be a contender.

Any amount will help. You do not have to live in Nashville, or be one of her constituants to contribute to her campaign. If you would just like to see more women in politics, starting with this incredible woman, then get out your checkbook or click her Paypal link and donate online! Legally, you can give up to $1000 per person, LLC or partnership. Corporations cannot donate.

Remember, any amount will help, from $1 up to $1000!

Information about how to contribute is on her website at Welch For Judge.com. She has a Paypal link too!!

The election primary is May 2, 2006 and the final election is November 2006. Let's get out there and help her WIN!

Fun in NYC

Well, I'm back from my very short trip to NYC with my friends. We had a great time. Here's a picture of us at the fountain outside theLincoln Center. This is the same fountain in the movie "Moonstruck". We stopped there on a walk through the city so Aviva could use the restroom at the Metropolitan Opera House. We told her that she has now officially "performed" at the Met. We're so proud.

On Thursday before our show, we had dinner at the the Carnegie Deli where we did a little star gazing. Actor Brad Garret from the TV show "Everybody Loves Raymond" was eating an enormous chicken salad and meat sandwich at the table right behind us. When he stood up to pay his bill, I snapped a picture of Devra with Brad in the background wearing the baseball cap. I didn't want to be a completely obnoxious papparizi-like fan though, so I didn't use the flash and unfortunately the whole photo is out of focus. You're just going to have to trust me that it was really him. Why else would I post such a blurry photo for everyone to see!?

Before we left the deli, we managed got into a conversation with one of the owners of the restaurant while she showed us her snapshots of herself with Barri Manilow from Vegas. We asked where Brad Garret's photo was on the walls which were covered in celebrity photos, and Devra asked how we could get our photo on the wall. When they found out that my friends had a book published, they were delighted to take our photo with Sanford Levine, acting president of the deli and MBD (Married to the Boss's Daughter). They gave us their card and asked us to get them an 8x10 and said they would hang it up (after we all autograph it of course).

Now that I'm back home, I need to catch up on some work. Speaking of work, Hubby actually got to go back to work for the first time this week. They finally got the power on in his building Monday, so Tuesday he was in his lab at Tulane trying to get things straightened out again. He left this morning for D.C. for his annual conference with the Society for Neuroscience. It's a big conference with 30,000 attendees that meets in New Orleans every few years and rotates a few other cities. The conference was scheduled for New Orleans for 2006 and 2009, but they have already found new locations for those future meetings since New Orleans won't be able to handle that crowd for a while.

Anyway, I had a fabulous time in NY. It was so much fun to get away for a bit. Thank you so much to my friends Devra and Aviva for showing me around! If you get a chance, check out their book, Mommy Guilt. It's fabulous!

Disaster Relief in NYC

Just a quick note from the hotel lobby. My friends Devra and Aviva are administering some disaster relief by rescuing me from the disaster area I live in. I have joined them for a girls weekend in New York City!! I flew in this morning and spent the afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art, and had dinner with some of my favorite cousins Kate and Joel. Devra and Aviva and I just got back from some good times out where they introduced me to some ethnic food, (Blintes and Monte Cristo) and tomorrow we are going into Manhatten to do the town and see a play on Broadway. We are seeing "Avenue Q"! I'll let you know how it goes when I get home. Whoopeee!!

On the Mend

As promised, here is a photo of our house now that we have completed the siding and fascia repair, and replaced our missing shutters. The new roof looks spiffy too. Also included here for your reference is a "before repairs" photo that was taken one week after the hurricane. Be sure to click the photos for a larger image. The red arrows are pointing to our nifty new fascia that we made with the metal brake this week.

Next we are working on getting a contractor for our fence repair. Unfortunately the entire fence belongs to us since we had it installed when we moved in six years ago. It is going to cost a LOT more than it did initially. But fortunately, our insurance finally came through!

Since we are going to have to replace the entire thing (about 80% of it was damaged or destroyed), we are not going to attempt this ourselves. I've had two estimates from contractors already and they are both on par with the insurance. Only one of them says he will haul away the old debris though. I do not want any more debris hanging around! FEMA came by and picked ours up already, and I don't think we get a second trip!

We are very fortunate that we have been able to get repairs done so quickly. Driving around our neighborhood, I can see that we are definitely one of the first ones to get our house back up to speed. Doing some of the work ourselves has also been very satisfying.

Most homes around us still have their blue tarps on them. Down the street, the garage door is still precariously leaning against the house. Right next door they finally got a crew to come close up that big hole and they are working on their roof. There is another crew of roofers across the street and one more behind us today. This place sure is busy with construction.

So with a lot of hard work, sweat, and tears, our house is on the mend. And with a lot of prayers and eyedrops, so is our dog. Oscar, our pug, had once again, another checkup at the vet on Monday. His eye is doing much better. He thankfully no longer has to wear that crazy neck cone. He wore that thing for almost 6 weeks! He does not have much vision left in that eye, so he's close to being completly blind since he can't see at all from the other eye. But at least he is no longer in pain and it looks like he won't have to lose the eyeball. Thank goodness!

I feel like all I do lately is make trips to the vet and hang out at Home Depot. Every time my sister calls me, I'm looking for something in Home Depot!! It's our new second home.

Gimme a Brake!

Yesterday we rented a big machine called a metal brake. We used it to bend the sheet metal that makes the trim for the siding on our house, also called the "fascia". We have been unable to find any professional to do this for us since we have a relatively small job (about 70 feet of missing fascia). The contractors are only interested in big jobs right now making big money. So, hubby and I have been doing the siding ourselves a little at a time.

In case any of my neighbors are reading this and want to know how we did it: We got a roll of "PVC trim coil" from Home Depot. The store in Slidell did not have anymore in the color white, so I went to the Covington store to get it. Lowe's doesn't have it at all. It was not expensive - about $60 for 50 feet. Then we rented the metal brake from Home Depot (about $60 for 24 hours). They also rent them at Tuff Equipment Rentals in Slidell for a lot less, but you need to call and reserve it since they were all out for this week. The brake is about 10 and a half feet long and very very heavy. It fit into my minivan only because we took all the seats out before we went. It still hung out of the van a couple of feet, so we tied the door down.

The metal trim coil cuts easily with a big pair of tin snips. The whole job was definitely a two person job. You need two people to maneuver the long strips of metal into place. If you bend them at all, you've ruined it! We cut the metal into 10' strips and marked off where we needed to make the bends, and which side to bend them. We practiced bending it on a short piece first. Once we figured out what we were doing, it went fairly quickly. When we were done with the bends for each 10 foot section, I would proudly shout, "Look what we made!" to my husband's embarassment.

Installing the fascia onto the house was not as simple as it looked. It was hard to line them up with each other perfectly, and they didn't quite match the existing fascia which has faded a little with age. So, we ended up replacing more of it than we thought to make it look right. We also had to borrow a very tall ladder from another neighbor to get to parts of it. You need two people to install - one person to hold one end, and the other to hammer it in place. Don't hammer the metal!

The whole job took us a good part of the day. It was a lot of work for just a little fascia, but now it is done and it's one more thing we can cross off our list, along with the repair of our attic insulation which we did the day before (another job that was not as easy as it looked!). We also discovered quite a bit of displaced insulation in the roof soffet that had been driven there by the storm. Imagine us on the roof with our shop vaccum sucking out the roof soffets so they will vent properly before we could install the fascia. We were quite a sight. I'll post a picture of the finished fascia job later. By the time we finished, it was too dark to take a picture.

Today, Hubby went into his office in New Orleans to retrieve some data from another computer that he needs for his Neuroscience conference this month. His building STILL does not have any power. Supposedly they were going to have the power on last Monday. Officially, the university still does not have a date to reopen the building to allow his lab back to work, although they expect him to be back teaching Janary 2. He's hoping it will be soon.

I cleaned out the garage and stowed all the Halloween decorations and dragged them back up to the newly insulated attic. I'm exhausted from all the physical labor we've been doing around here. Tomorrow I am going to take a break and work at my desk instead!

Halloween

The long awaited ghoul family photos are here! Our Halloween party was a huge success. It was probably bigger than it's ever been. There were so many people in our neighborhood this year -- most likely due to many other neighborhoods not in shape for Trick-or-treaters.

We served chili and hot dogs, and my friend Jeannie helped make some other delicious treats. We put out all our decorations including our spooky graveyard and fog machine. The kids all had a great time and they were so happy. The weather was awesome - about 75 degrees. The rain (which we really needed) was kind enough to wait until everyone had gone to bed.

When it was all over, Jeannie's 6 year old son said it all when he commented, "That was a GREAT Halloween!" I gave him a big hug. They drove back to their temporary apartment in Texas today, armed with a fistful of contractor estimates. Mike will be back next week to meet with their adjustor again.

There were quite a few Katrina costumes around, mostly on adults, but a few on kids. Here's a photo of a couple of my son's friends whose house was closer to the lake and flooded completely. One is dressed as moldy sheetrock and the other is an embarrased Saints fan. I saw one man dressed as a looter (his shirt said, "looter" and he carried a box of Nike shoes), and a woman wearing the blue roof tarp. I saw another mom with posterboard that had fake money glued all over it and it said, "$2000 FEMA money". I didn't see anyone dressed as the Mayor or the Governor though. I have a feeling we'll be seeing many more of these costumes at Mardi Gras this year in the French Quarter.

Here are the photos of my little darlings. Maddie was a white witch. Justin was an executioner. Morgan was the Wicked Witch of the East (she had red ruby slippers and striped socks), and since no one really knows the color of that witch's hair (since she was smushed under Dorothy's house), Morgan decided pink was it. Be sure to click these images to see the larger photos.



Before we get ready to put all the Halloween decorations back in the attic, Hubby and I decided this was a good time to make repairs to the attic. We spent a couple of hours fixing the floorboards up there and spreading lots of new insulation to replace what had been sucked out of the attic during the storm. We lost more insulation than we realized, and a lot of it was stuck in places that blocked the attic ventilation. It's all good as new now.

Anyway, I'm SO glad that the kids had such a great time this year. I'm so happy that the turnout was huge. I'm so happy that so many people had a good place to come trick-or-treat.

Small Frys

We bought some new fish for our fish tank last week. We've had one lone fish for several months, and we decided he needed some friends. He did not evacuate with us, but stayed home to "ride out the storm", and we came home to find him happily swimming in a tank filled with green algae from not having a functioning filter for two weeks while the power was out.

We got guppies and mollies. One of the guppies had babies yesterday. The babies are called fry. We separated them into a little isolation box in the tank so the other fish don't eat them. Aren't they cute?! That's one of the mollies looking up at the delicious little treats.

Katrina Costume Ideas

People are finding this website while searching for "Katrina Costume Ideas", so I thought I would actually post some. My friends Jeannie and Mike, who have been staying with us while they gut their flooded moldy house, helped come up with these. We had a good laugh, which is a helluva lot more fun than a good cry:


Katrina Costume Ideas
by Laurel, Jeannie, and Mike in Slidell, LA



In the interest of simplifying the Internet, I have posted most of this article here:

Mardi Gras Costume Pics / Katrina Costumes

Burnt Down Their House

Another friend of mine lives in a nice neighborhood where only a few houses took on water. Her house did not, but the ones across the street from her did. Apparently one homeowner, right across the street from her, didn't have flood insurance or wasn't going to get coverage or something, because he is currently in jail for setting their home on fire.

I took a ride over to her street yesterday to have a look. The first photo is the side view from the driveway. The next photo is taken from the front of the house. There isn't much left except the brick and the stucco facade.

People do desperate things in desperate times. I guess he thought this was the way to get his homeowners policy to cover his losses. Unfortunately for his family, now they will get nothing, and their home is destroyed, and he is in prison.

More fires in town: A restaurant that had been used as a staging area for emergency workers burned down last week from an electrical fire. And, a couple of days ago, the paper reported that the debris field in the area nearer to the lake was burning out of control. We haven't had any rain for 8 weeks now, except for a tiny sprinkle when Hurricane Rita came through. We have a burn ban in the city of Slidell for just that reason.

Sis in the News

Check out my Sis all over the news in Nashville last night! My Sis is a Metro police sergeant and she is one good cop! I'm so proud of her.

Channel 2: Metro Police bust a major marijuana production Look in the left column on that page for the video link, "Major Drug Bust" which features my Sis!

Channel 4: House used solely for major marijuana growing operation Under the photos is the video link titled, "Record breaking marijuana bust", also featuring the lovely sergeant Welch!

Channel 5: Police Make One Of Largest Pot Busts In History


In one of the stories it says:

One thing that aroused suspicion was that NES bills for most of the homes in the neighborhood run about $100. However, this particular house regularly had an electric bill of around $500 a month.

Hmmmmm, I wonder if my lovely $476 utility bill this month is enough to get police around here looking for my secret basement. ;-)

Utility Bills and other stuff

We got our electric utility bill yesterday. August and September are usually our highest bills of the year because of the heat. A typical summer month usually costs us about $200-$250 and in the winter it is about $80. In our September bill, they estimated our usage from the previous month since they could not come out and read meters due to the storm. They estimated our bill at about half of what our previous month was, so our bill was around $100.

Yesterday I opened our October bill for the past month's use since we have been home and it was $476. Talk about sticker shock. Apparently they grossly underestimated last month, or there is something seriously wrong with our bill. According to our bill, our usage for the past two months (including the estimated month) was 5335 units, which averages 2667 units per month. This is on par with our July usage of 2690 units. But then where is the two weeks where we used no power at all? Our usages should have been MUCH lower. ....Unless, of course, there is a grow room in my house that I don't know about.

We are not the only ones with a bill like this. There is a whole story about it in the paper this morning in the article titled, "Utility Bills Back with a Vengeance". All I can say is "Ugh!!" At least the phone company didn't charge us for all the time the phones were out.


Our mortgage company finally returned our insurance check to us. They decided to make it easy for us and just endorse it and release the entire thing to us without forcing us to go through the song and dance of their inspectors, etc. Unfortunately they FORGOT to put the endorsement on the back of the check when they returned it in the pre-paid Fed-ex envelope I sent them! They said they would pay to have it overnighted to us because of their error, but I don't have much confidence in them after they "forgot" to do the very thing for which I sent the check in the first place, so I didn't take any chances. I sent another pre-paid Fed-ex envelope. I don't want them to "accidentally" put it in First Class mail which will take about two weeks to get here and probably get lost.


In other updates, my friend Jeannie has been getting contractors to come do estimates on their roof and all of the drywall in their house, and for the mold removal. Unfortunately since they could not get back into the house for 3 weeks, the mold damage is pretty severe. Her husband Mike had to go buy a regulator to breathe through since he seems to be very allergic to all the mold. Those regulator masks are very popular in New Orleans right now, and did you know that mold comes in every color of the rainbow?


The fencing company I called a few weeks ago finally came to give me an estimate for our fence. Jeannie and I are both discovering that the longer it takes to get the contractors to your house, the more the prices go up. I guess materials and labor are in short supply because of all the rebuilding.


Finally, here's an update on the Grave Tragedy that I wrote about last month. They have returned the tombs to their proper resting place at last in this story, TALES OF THE CRYPTS. Here's a photo from the paper. I couldn't find the photo on the newspaper's website, so this will have to do:.

Coming, Going and Blowing

My friend Jeannie and her family got here last night. They stopped by their house before they came over so Jeannie could see their house for the first time. All the sheetrock has been cut out a couple of feet above the floor and all the carpet has been ripped out. She took it really well, all things considered.

This morning they took their kids for a little drive around town to tour some of the damage. We told them to head over to the Eden Isles neighborhood to really get an eyefull of destruction. They are probably over there right now.

On Sunday, the garbage haulers came back and finished the job! They also managed to clean up Jeannie's neighborhood as well. They had a lot more debris than we did because of the flooding.

In the last couple of days we've had to bundle up and actually wear jackets since a cool breeze blew in from up north. Yes, I guess winter really is on the way. I know the rest of you have been having cool weather for some time now. It's been all the way down in the 50's here! I guess I'm spoiled by my shorts-wearing-weather 10 months of the year. Brrrrrrr!!! ;-)

The wind has been blowing hard the last couple of days and the plastic covering the gaping hole in next door neighbor's house has been ripping and flapping so loud that I thought it was thunder the first night. Here's a picture.

My neighbor across the street (with the renters who have the infamous huge pile of debris that they brought over here from New Orleans) finally got his official job transferred to Birmingham and told me this morning that they will be putting their house up for sale now. They will give their renters the option to buy it first, he said. A house diagonally behind us just sold and they were having an inspection done this morning. There are a lot of homes changing hands around here right now. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out. I will miss having my neighbor's daughter Jessica across the street. She was one of my kids' favorite babysitters!! I guess she would have gone off to college next year anyway.

We're almost done fixing our siding. Hubby installed the rest of the soffet and I was finally able to locate and purchase a roll of the metal sheeting we need for the trim (fascia). I had to drive a ways to get it. I also located a place to rent the big tool we need to bend it correctly -- it's called a "metal break". We should be tackling this home repair project next weekend since we'll be busy this weekend with our Halloween stuff and Hubby will be out of town the rest of this week.

Some Updates

The I-10 bridge has been repaired on one side and is open to two way traffic - one lane each direction. I don't think it has helped relieve the traffic though.

The Red Cross station that was handing out money to people here in Slidell has closed and probably is helping serve the people over in New Orleans right now. They are still operating some shelters here though. I just want to add that a LOT of people got money from the Red Cross here in Slidell. They gave out debit cards to families or gave them a check or a direct deposit into their bank account. It was reassuring to me to know that a lot of the money donated by people from all over the country REALLY DOES go right into the hands of the people who need it. Not only that, but with the debit cards, the users do not even have to pay sales tax, so they are able to buy even more for the money.

I was sorry to hear that my next door neighbor's 1st cousin was one of the elderly women who drowned in a nursing home in New Orleans during the flood. Also, the mother of one of my son's gym teammates had an uncle who was picked out of the floodwaters and taken to the Superdome during the flood. An older man who was with him had broken his leg and was taken there with him. While they were there, they had no food or medical help for 3 days. There was food there at first, but racial issues caused others not to share what they had with them, even with an injured old man. The older man died at the Superdome as a result. Very very sad indeed.

We're still waiting to hear if our mortgage company will make an exception in our case and release our insurance check to us immediately instead of holding it hostage. I am not holding my breath, but it's nice to know it's being considered.

The roofers came out this morning to fix one of the pipe caps that was not installed correctly. I was glad they made good on their promise to fix it, especially considering I had already paid them. Paid them a lot!

My friend Jeannie and her family are coming to town on Monday to assess their house and see what they can do. They will most likely be staying here with us for a week or two. They will be here for our Halloween party!

The trash haulers didn't get all the trash, and have not come back for the huge pile across the street as they promised. I hope they are really going to come back! Our regular garbage collection has cut its pickups in half starting last week.

Our local news channels are really focusing on the current storm in the gulf, even though it probably won't come anywhere near us. I think they are just really feeling emotionally tied to the poor Florida folks in it's path. I hope everyone there remembers to empty thier freezer and take it all with them in a big cooler when they evacuate! And don't forget your gas cans!!

Theoretically, Tulane is going to allow the research professors back to work on November 1st. This includes Hubby, although that may be difficult for him considering his building is one of the only ones left with no power. The sub-basement where the electrical stuff is located was flooded. They can't work in the building without power, so we are still waiting to see what will happen with that.

And that's it for today folks!

Da Prez

This is a picture of my next door neighbor Donnie with da Prez taken last month (by White House staff I think). Donnie works in the Folgers coffee plant in New Orleans where Dubya made one of his first visits to the area after the storm. Donnie was back at work pretty early after the disaster, and Dubya took a break from talking to the press for a few minutes and walked over and introduced himself to Donnie while he was working. You can see a can of Folgers coffee in Dubya's other hand in the pic.

All politics aside, it sure is cool to see someone you know with the POTUS (President of the United States). The photo is a little faded because it is a picture of a hard copy photo (my scanner is on the blink). Interestingly (or not), Dubya is a relative of mine on my father's side. We both have a common ancestor, John Howland, who came over on the Mayflower. Technically, Dubya is my 9th cousin 4 times removed, and 9th cousin 3 times removed to his dad, Big George. This makes my kids 10th cousins to the presidents. Not that anyone cares. I don't really care either unless it gets us invited to the White House for Thanksgiving dinner.

For all of my Democratic relatives who are probably reading this, I will also include another photo of W just to make sure they don't disown me for posting that first picture. Here's a photo I got from a friend that had the caption, "Why help never arrived." (feel free to chuckle)

About the same time Donnie was meeting W, my aunt and uncle and two cousins were fishing in Alaska on a boat with Hillary and Sen. McCain. I'll gladly post a photo of that too, even though the fishing trip was not related to the hurricane disaster. Perhaps I could start a new blog entitled, "photos of people I know with people everyone knows".

And speaking of Dubya stuff, here is a not-to-be-missed article by my favorite local columnist from yesterday's paper titled, "The Uptown Fridge Wars" where he talks about how Uptown New Orleans residents are using the "weapons of our mass destruction", in their quest for normalcy in the face of disaster. Good stuff.

The Garbage Trucks Are Here!

The garbage trucks are here! The news flew through the neighborhood as soon as they pulled into the entrance. My next door neighbor, Kathy, called to tell me they were here and everyone came out of their homes to watch. You would think we had nothing better to do. Some of us even pulled up lawn chairs to watch the debris dissappear. We remarked that it was a lot like a parade. Four HUGE trucks and a big crane-thingy that bites the trash and loads it.

Unfortunately, an SUV was parked in the street in front of the large debris pile across the street and they were unable to pick it up. The garbage haulers seemed friendly enough though, and assured us that they would try to get it tomorrow. They will be in the neighborhood for several days picking it all up.

Eye Opener

Today we took a little drive around town. On our tour, we drove through one of the neighborhoods that was near the lake. We keep hearing that what you see on tv or in photos really does not prepare you for the total amount of destruction around here. It's true. A photo just cannot capture the entire thing. We took a picture of this former house of which there was nothing left but the cement slab and a lone toilet still in place. The next door neighbors were living in their RV on the property. We saw a lot of that.

The houses in that neighborhood had debris piles as big as a house, and in many cases, the debris pile WAS the house. In this picture you can see a house peeking out from behind the pile. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to come home to something like this. While we are moving along toward normality relatively quickly in our neighborhood, these people are going to be putting pieces back together for a long long time.
This is Eden Isle neighborhood. The owner of the kids' gymnatsics club lives in here. We tried to find his house, but the streets are all so unrecognizable that we couldn't orient ourselves enough to find it. I'm sure it looks similiar to these though. The gym is back open again and the kids have been in classes. They have most of their employees back which is better than a lot of businesses around town.

The National Guard in Slidell have moved on and are not longer giving out MRE's and bottled water. We seem to have most of our critical services back in Slidell, so they have presumably gone over to New Orleans to help out all those folks who are just getting back in recent weeks.

It is nice to see some "normal" stuff happening again. I think most people here would agree with that.

Debris Pile of the Month

On the news the other night, they noted that over in New Orleans the trash trucks are hauling the debris out at an incredible pace, and if they can keep up that same pace, they will be able to remove all of the Katrina debris in just under two years. Slidell will not have to wait that long.

We've noticed a funny thing in some of the neighborhoods that have more manageable debris piles like ours. Slowly the piles are shrinking. At first we didn't detect it, but now it's getting very obvious. Most of it is due to the debris owners sticking one bag or two each week into the garbage can which is now being picked up fairly regularly (although they miss a pickup here an there). The garbage collectors will only take what is in the can, so no one leaves their can only half-full. I've also seen one opportunistic entrepreneur driving through our neighborhood picking up all the metal objects from each pile until he had a truckload - metal fence poles, metal roof fascia, chimney pipes, etc. I assume he was getting paid for a load of scrap metal. I was happy to let him pick through our pile and reduce it.

Another reason for the shrinking piles is that people in our neighborhood are starting to take pride in having a nice organized debris pile. (We admit to taking part in this debris organization ourselves). They separate out the tree and limb debris from the construction debris. We make nice neat organized piles of the siding, metal fence poles, cement pilings, neatly rolled carpet, shingles etc. We break down the smaller tree limbs that have had adequate time to dry and are easy to snap. Making the piles a little neater also gives the poor grass a fighting chance at survival underneath. That is really the only reason for living in a suburb anyway -- to take pride in growing grass. (Ha!)

You may have thought I was joking about the "yard of the month" award earlier this month, but our neighborhood really does have a Green Team that actually gives such an honor. I was definitely joking about us winning it though, because even my kids admit that we will never have the honor. They don't seem to care though, especially as long as they are allowed to climb trees.

Apparently now our neighbors are all competing for "Debris Pile of the Month". They'd better watch it though, if they work at it too much, they will reduce the size of their pile to zero, and have to try for "yard of the month" instead. A few people have already managed to accomplish this. In a few more weeks, we will be there too - assuming we can fit that big stump into the garbage can at some point. We already gave our big box of shingles to our roofers to haul away with the rest of our old roof, and our pile is slowly shrinking.

The large pile across the street is shrinking too. The homeowner who rented his house across the street came around today and spent over an hour re-arranging their monster pile. It looks very nice now - at least as nice as a debris pile can look. Perhaps I should nominate them to our Green Team.


Other notes about our family: My youngest daughter is feeling somewhat better. We can see why this has all been hardest for her. She seems to have lost the most in our family. She lost her backyard playhouse (she loved that thing), she lost her dog (when we took it back to my parents), she has also lost a large number of her friends (there are only 13 children in her class now), and she lost her routine at school since her school was one of those that flooded and they spent the first week doubling up some of the classrooms. She will be losing her teacher after December since her current teacher is one of the new hires and is filling in for the regular teacher who has been on maternity leave the first semester. Her current teacher would probably lose her job anyway since she is one of the new hires and they will be the first ones they let go next semester (see note from the school superintendent). These last couple of weeks have been hard. She's starting to adjust though, I hope. She still has her family and a comfortable safe house, so by most standards she has a lot. It's hard to explain that to a six-year old though. I just hug her a lot.

My kids asked if we could put out some of our Halloween decorations. I was thrilled to do something that felt utterly normal, so as soon as the roofers left, we put out our huge inflatable jack-o-lantern lawn decoration. We also dragged all the other Halloween stuff down from the attic (it was all covered in splinters and crud from the roofing nails punching through all over everything). We have more Halloween decor than Christmas decor. The neighbors are all getting excited about our annual Halloween block party that I have hosted for the past 6 years. They are looking forward to it this year more than ever. For some of them, it's the only time they ever really get to interact with the rest of the neighbors.

I am really looking forward to it myself. Our debris pile will probably look really good by then too. :-)

Roofers

Holy frijoles! It was LOUD inside the house all day yesterday. We had a crew of six workers stomping around ripping out the old roof and hammering in new shingles. It sounded like the whole house was coming down. It's SO much louder on the inside than it is on the outside, so I spent as much time as possible hanging out with the neighbors watching our roof installation. Those guys really work hard.

Here's something I noted as I went into Home Depot yesterday. They had a sign out front that said, "Yes, we're open" and below that it had the Spanish translation, "Estamos abiertos." I realize that seeing signs in Spanish is common in many parts of the country, but it is not common here in Louisiana. In fact, it is so uncommon, that I was very surprised by it, so I took a picture.

St. Tammany Parish supposedly has an extra 100,000 people in it right now -- most of them are relief workers and construction workers. Apparently many of them are Hispanic, including our roofers. Getting around town is very difficult since the traffic is horrendous with all the extra people. Also interesting is that it seems like EVERY single retail store of any kind has a "help wanted" sign out, including Wal-Mart. There are not enough workers for all the jobs since so many people were displaced, or else they all went to work making big bucks doing construction since that is where the money is right now.

Well, it appears that our crew has arrived this morning to continue working on our roof. They are all standing around on our lawn having a breakfast of Cheetos and cigarettes before they get started. The job should be finished by today. I'm glad they're here. Thanks guys! Gracias!

The Foulest of All

Ok, Ok, Ok. This is hands down the winner of the owner of the stinkiest fridge. A warehouse company in New Orleans has the unpleasant task of cleaning up their three warehouses full of 52 million pounds of rotting chicken.

More than a month after Hurricane Katrina turned what used to be row after row of 35-foot-high frozen towers of palletized leg quarters into an immense mound of unimaginable foulness, the mess still has not been cleaned up.

It is described in detail in an article titled, " Don’t you dare complain about cleaning one fridge".

Ok, so I have cleaned four fridges. One that belonged to my next door neighbor complete with maggots, one that belonged to my friend that sat for 3 weeks cooking it's grotesque putridity, and two of which were mine (although my sister did the dirty job part of those and I just swooped in for the detailing).

Let me just try to visualize that again: Fifty-two million pounds of rotting chicken.

Time to shut my piehole.

Fetid Fridges

I could not resist posting these pictures. I did not take them -- they are from our paper (see the complete collection here). This morning's paper had a collection of photos of repulsive refridgerators from around town that have become a medium for humor. We have quite a few fridges on my street that are sitting on the curb too, but none of them have anything funny to say like these do from New Orleans.

I guess I've had my head inside way too many stinky appliances lately because I cannot say enough about them. I was even taking apart our garage freezer yesterday because I am determined to find the source of its stench. Our freezer has been sitting open airing out for over a month now. When I tipped it to move it back to it's usual spot in the garage, some putrid water was leaking out of it. Somehow it still had water in it after a month of drying out! I cracked it open and found that some of the insulation was still wet. I am not giving up on it yet. By the time it's all over, it may be my Franken-fridge, because it will not die!

Anyway, these photos from our paper gave me a chuckle and so I had to share them. These two in particular seem quite fitting for Halloween. Speaking of which, my neighbors are all asking about my annual Halloween party. I am definitely planning to have it, but we have not planned our costumes yet. Usually I start thinking about this sort of thing 6 months in advance! I hope we can come up with something fun on short notice. Perhaps we should consider going as a fetid fridge or some other other abominable appliance. .....Nah.

Alligators and other stuff

Just about everyone has probably seen the photo of the huge crocodile that was reportedly eating New Orleans flood victims. It is a hoax of course, although the photo is real, but it was taken in Congo. First of all there are no crocodiles in North America. We have ALLIGATORS in the United States, not crocodiles. They are quite different. HERE is a photo of an actual alligator in someone's swimming pool from the flood. It is a small gator, but a gator just the same. And just as pesky! The photo was in our local paper with the following caption, "A young alligator floats on the water of Warren Pope's pool at his Gentilly home. Monday, October 10, 2005. STAFF PHOTO BY RUSTY COSTANZA".

Now that we've cleared that up, here's an update on what we've been doing for the past couple of days. The kids finished their first week of school. My two oldest kids have settled right back into their routine and seem happy to be back with their friends. My youngest is having some trouble adjusting to post-K life (post Katrina, or post-kindergarten, you pick). She seems to cry easily and is easily frustrated lately, much more than she used to be. I invited a friend of hers over for a few hours on Sunday and that seemed to help.

The paper published the school attendance for the week. My children attend two different schools. One had attendendance down 30% and the other was down 29%. This includes all the new students who just started attending since the storm. Wow. They are already discussing layoffs of some of the teachers in the district, but I think they will wait at least until next semester to see if more students return.

Our roofing company is supposed to start our roof tomorrow, but there is a shortage of roofing material now, and the contractor called me to see if we could substitute a different type. We're going to look at it in the morning to decide if it will work for us. I hope it does, otherwise, we'll be waiting a few more weeks for our roof repair. We don't have the insurance money straightened out yet anyway.

Our dog Oscar had another checkup for his injured eye today. He was full of energy at the vet's office. I guess he's feeling much better. His eye is still making good (but slow) progress. He has to wear the collar for another three weeks and keep getting the eyedrops. His next appointment is on Halloween morning. He's so lucky because he'll be wearing his Halloween costume all month. He gets to be a Direct TV satellite dish. Lucky dog.